


Lying to Himself

by evilwriter37



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dreams, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9602183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37
Summary: The nogitsune torments Stiles in his dreams.





	

If he said he wasn’t scared, he’d be lying to himself. Lying was something Stiles was very good at, but straight-up denying the existence of something that was coursing through his veins like ice water was something he couldn’t do.

First off, he had no idea where he was. It was dark, but there was a faint, reddish light coming from somewhere, or everywhere. There was no source that he could pinpoint. It was like when there was a night scene in a show or movie and you could see everything fine, but still knew that it was dark.

He was standing in the middle of a pathway, trees to either side of him. Twisting his head around revealed that there didn’t seem to be an end in either direction, everything just trailing off into murky shadows.

Stiles swallowed hard, looking back in the direction he had been originally facing. His heart thudded too quickly in his chest.

“What the hell?” he breathed to himself. None of this was right. How had he gotten here?

_Snap!_

Stiles swiveled around, eyes wide as they searched for the source of the sound. It came again, to his left, like a twig being broken underfoot, but with no indication of what had caused it. Though terrified, he stood firmly in place. Better to figure out where it was coming from so that he would know what direction to run in.

More snapping and crunching. Definitely something coming through the woods towards him.

“ _Stiles…_ ”

He jumped and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The hoarse, drawn-out whisper had come from behind him. He peered anxiously into the trees, muscles tensing to run.

There was _something_ there, not ten feet away from him. The figure was partially hidden by the gray-red foliage, but it was obviously humanoid. And it was _staring_ at him. Stiles couldn’t see its eyes, as they were covered by bandages that wrapped around its entire head save for the mouth, but the thing could somehow see him. He could feel it with acute awareness, like his soul was being looked at under a microscope.

“You.” His voice shook. The word was barely audible. He knew what this thing was, had been visited by it before. He was dreaming. And for most, dreams held no consequences, could do nothing to change something in the waking world, but here, with this _thing_ , he was in danger.

It didn’t speak; only tilted its bandaged head and parted its mouth in a hideous form of a smile, showing sharp, uneven teeth.

“G-Get out of my head.” 

“Is that a demand, Stiles?” it asked, creeping closer. “It doesn’t quite sound like one.”

Stiles wanted to run, but he felt frozen to the spot. Maybe he was. The nogitsune could manipulate his dreams.

He took a deep breath, trying to pool whatever courage he had left. There wasn’t a whole lot of it.

“Get. Out.” His words were louder this time, firmer.

“But you let me in!” It came out of the cover of the trees in a strange, limping gait. “ _You_ closed the door.”

Stiles shook his head, felt himself beginning to shake, felt tears forming in his eyes. 

“No, no. That was an accident. I-I didn’t mean to.” He spoke in a panicked rush.

“You let me in,” the nogitsune insisted, pointing a dirty-bandaged finger at him. 

Stiles stumbled backwards as it came closer, fell to the ground, leaves crunching beneath him. At least that had proven that he was still able to move. With barely any hesitation, he scrambled to his feet and started running. He’d never seen the nogitsune run before. Maybe it couldn’t.

_Good. That’s good. You’re faster than him._

His feet pounded on the ground and he was breathing hard. He dared a glance over his shoulder to see if he was being followed. He tripped on his own feet but managed to remain standing, startled by what he saw behind him. Nothing. The nogitsune was gone.

Stiles looked around in a panic, gasping. It was still here somewhere. He realized how stupid it was to think he could run from it. It was pretty much everywhere. It was inside his _head._

Thinking about that made him feel sick, violated. There was something else inside his own brain with him, something evil and cruel.

“Okay, Stiles, wake up. Gotta wake up.”

He was shaking, at a loss of what to do. He slapped at his face with both hands, pinched his arms. How was he supposed to wake himself up?

“You’re dreaming, you’re dreaming,” he rambled to himself. He tightly shut his eyes, grabbed at his head. “You’re dreaming! Come on! Wake up! Wake up!”

“Stiles.”

He yelped in surprise, spinning around to face the nogitsune. It was so close he could smell the rotting stench of death coming off of it. He looked at the bandage over its eyes, felt like he was making eye contact even though he wasn’t. Did it even have eyes under all of that?

“You can’t run, Stiles.”

He took a few hurried steps back, holding out his hands in a sad form of staving it off.

“No! Y-You stay away from me!”

The nogitsune showed its teeth in a taunting smile. It took a step forward. Stiles took a few more back.

“I said stay away!”

“You know there is only one way to end this, Stiles.” It loped towards him, forcing him backwards till he was against a tree.

“Yeah, possessing me? Never gonna happen.” He spat it at him, though he didn’t believe his own words. It felt like his insides were liquefying. Tears streaked his face. He didn’t know how he was still standing.

“Let me _in_.”

Oh god, it was inches from him now. Stiles closed his eyes as if that would make it disappear.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” he muttered to himself. “Come on, wake up.”

“Let me in, Stiles,” the nogitsune growled at him impatiently.

He couldn’t muster his voice to respond. He just shook his head, a sob crawling up his throat.

“Let. Me. In.” 

 

Stiles woke bellowing and screaming, thrashing around wildly as if trying to escape something that held onto him.

Frantically, he sat up, screams dying down into sobs. He expected his dad to run into the room any second, to grab onto him and hold him tight until the panic had passed. Then he remembered he had insisted on working a night shift at the station. His dad wasn’t here. He was alone. Sort of. There was still the nogitsune floating around somewhere in his head. He could almost feel it, like black smoke tainting the edges of his mind.

He buried his head in his hands, feeling utterly frightened and hopeless.

_What do I do?_

He wiped at his face and through his hair, then flopped onto his back. It was still dark and he wondered what time it was. He turned his head to look at the alarm clock on his nightstand. Red numbers blinked out at him. 3:15.

Stiles groaned. There were still a few more hours to go before he could officially get up and get ready to go to school, a few more hours for him to suffer. He sure as hell wasn’t going back to sleep. It didn’t matter how tired he was. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant being tormented by the nogitsune. He just couldn’t win. Keeping it at bay and depriving himself of sleep was exhausting. He was losing. He was losing bad. There was no way he could lie to himself about that.


End file.
